Ralph Compton The Convict Trail

by Ralph Compton

  “Been expecting you, Marshal Kane,” Stringfellow said. “You don’t look so good.”

  “Last I saw of you, Buff, you wasn’t lookin’ so good either. As I recollect, you was a-runnin’ through the mud like a buckshot coyote.”

  Stringfellow smiled. “Yeah, well, we ain’t a-runnin’ now, are we?”

  Kane nodded. He looked around the bar. The bartender had disappeared and there were no other patrons. Probably they’d been run off by the convicts.

  “I don’t have much time, so I’m going to talk plain to you men,” Kane said. “I want you to surrender your guns and then come with me peacefully. I guarantee you a fair hearing in Fort Smith on multiple counts of murder and a crackerjack hanging with new hemp ropes.”

  Stringfellow turned, looked at Henry and both men broke into guffaws of laughter. Albright and Largo joined in the mirth, neither of them aware that they’d soon be dead men.

  Logan Kane looked dreadful, like a walking corpse. But, covered in blood, his eyes burning with cold, green fire, that night he was probably the most dangerous living being, human or animal, on earth.

  Jack Henry knew it. A killer himself, he recognized it in others and he showed it by the way his skin tightened like parchment against his cheekbones. Standing tall and terrible in the trembling, orange lamplight, Logan Kane was a man to step around, a man to let be. But Henry had been there many times before. There was no going back from this and there could be only one end . . . and that would be when dead men were stretched on the floor.

  Henry rose to his feet, the scrape of his chair scratching across the silence.

  “Kane!” he yelled. “The hell with you!”

  Jack Henry, man killer, named gunfighter, drew—and died.

  His gun had cleared the leather, his thumb on the hammer, when Kane’s bullet crashed into the bridge of his nose. Henry’s head snapped back and he did an odd pirouette on his right foot, staggered to the side and sprawled across Stringfellow. The rickety chair collapsed under the weight of both men and Stringfellow fell on his back, Henry’s limp body on top of him.

  Amos Albright had stepped away from the bar and he was bringing up the Greener. Beside him, Kane heard Vito fire twice. Albright staggered back, blasting the shotgun into the timber ceiling. Vito fired again and this time the man went down. In his dying moments Albright learned he’d made a fatal mistake—an abuser of women should never seek a fight with men.

  Terrified, Reuben Largo took himself out of it. His gun still in the leather, he screamed and made a dash for the back door. He almost made it, but Kane cut him down with two fast shots. The man died with his boots in the saloon and his face in the mud.

  Through the gray, sullen drift of gun smoke, Kane saw Stringfellow try to rise. His crutch thumping rapidly on the floor, the marshal stepped beside the outlaw. Stringfellow looked up at Kane and shrank back, like a man seeing a frightful ghost.

  Stringfellow’s Colt had slipped out of the holster and lay beside him. The man eyed it and Kane, out of his mind with pain and rage, roared, “Pick it up, damn you! Get to your work!”

  Stringfellow jerked back his hand as if the gun were suddenly red-hot. His scared eyes lifted to Kane’s face and he shook his head, struck dumb by fear.

  “Pick it up!” Kane yelled. His boot crashed into Stringfellow’s ribs. “Pick it up!”

  At that moment, Logan Kane was no longer human. He had reverted to something that had existed a long time before in mankind’s past, a creature primitive, brutish and savage. His boot thudded again and again into Stringfellow’s body and face. The man writhed and shrieked, blood on his lips, his wild eyes already swollen shut.

  Vito stepped in front of Kane. “Stop, Marshal!” he said. “See him hang, but don’t kick the man to death.”

  Kane’s lips were pulled back from his teeth, his face murderous. “Get away from me!” he roared.

  “Damn you, Kane, he’s had enough!” Suddenly the muzzle of Vito’s gun was pressed into the marshal’s throat. “Back off or I swear I’ll blow your head off.”

  Like a man waking from a nightmare, Kane stared into Vito’s eyes for a long moment, blinked, then looked down at Stringfellow as though seeing the man for the first time. “I’m all right,” he said after a long while. He breathed hard, steadying himself. “Let somebody else kill him.”

  Vito waited, his gaze searching Kane’s face for any sign of an untruth; then he took his gun away. He managed a weak smile. “You do get a tad overwrought by times, don’t you, Marshal?”

  The door opened and a grizzled head of a miner poked inside.

  “You,” Kane said to the man. “Bring me the blacksmith.”

  “Huh?”

  Louder this time. “Bring me the damned blacksmith!”

  The old miner backed out and his running footsteps sounded on the boardwalk.

  Kane looked through the curling gun smoke at the three dead men, then the groaning man at his feet. He wanted to lie down and sleep, close his eyes and lose himself in oblivion for hours. Forever. No, not that, not forever. He had thought himself dying, but death was a luxury he could not afford. It was his duty to take Buff Stringfellow to Fort Smith to be hanged. This was what Judge Parker expected. That he was returning without his driver and five of the escaped convicts would not sit well with the old man. It would probably cost him his star.

  Kane nodded to himself. No matter, he was done with all of it anyway, the shooting and the killing. The smell of blood and powder smoke acrid in his nose, he vowed that he would never again turn a gun on any human being.

  The door opened. The blacksmith, a burly man, stepped inside and looked around anxiously.

  Kane pointed to Stringfellow. “Make an iron collar for him. Make it thick and strong, a padlock on one side, a ring on the other. I want it by first light.”

  “That fast”—the blacksmith swallowed hard—“it will cost you ten dollars.”

  Kane turned to Vito. “Pay the man, then help me back to the hotel.” He glanced at Stringfellow. “We’ll take that with us.”

  “What’s left of it,” Vito said, without even an attempt at humor.

  Chapter 31

  Logan Kane pulled out of Baines Flat at sunup. Lorraine rode next to him and Nellie, and Vito took up the rear. Kane dragged Stringfellow behind him by a rope looped through the ring welded to his iron collar. The man staggered through the mud, his breath hissing through his teeth. Every time he stumbled and fell, Kane jerked him to his feet again.

  Apart from a groan now and then, Stringfellow was silent. The man had fallen apart completely, the iron collar a harsh symbol of his harsher fate. His arrogance had disappeared with the deaths of Jack Henry and the others, and now he seemed a broken man, content to allow himself to be dragged, like a sheep, to his death.

  Logan faced a two-day ride to Fort Smith, a prospect that scared him. He had steeled himself to hold on as long as he was able. All he had to do was get close enough and Vito could take Stringfellow and the women the rest of the way.

  After an hour’s ride, Kane reached the foothills of Poteau Mountain. As he led the way into the pines and hardwoods covering the southern slope of the ridge, fever raged through him and he rode slumped in the saddle, Stringfellow stumbling along behind him. It seemed to Kane that the trees, swollen with a north wind, spun around him and the mountain stood on end, its prow-shaped outcroppings of rock threatening to break loose and crush him.

  A couple of miles to the west soared the twenty-four-hundred-foot peak of Oklahoma High Top, lost in cloud and rain. Some said that the mountain was part of a vast territory once claimed by Vikings who traveled far across the misty ocean, only to perish in a land even more hard and unforgiving than their own.

  Norsemen were far from Kane’s mind, but as he climbed the Poteau ridge he would have believed, had someone mentioned it to him, that he was sharing their hardships.

  The marshal heard whispered talk between Lorraine and Vito. Then they rose closer to him, supporting
him in the saddle. They were near, but Kane felt alone, more alone than he’d ever been in his life. Around him, rain ticked through the pines, and the wind sang an elegy for the sun that had died somewhere beyond the leaden clouds.

  Kane searched for the top of the ridge. He could not see it through the trees, but he felt its baleful presence. Then he knew what was happening. The entire mountain was moving, rolling over him, a colossus of rock that would smash him to pieces.

  He screamed, just before the mountain covered him and plunged him into darkness.

  “He’s coming to. His eyes are opening.”

  Lorraine’s voice. Kane drifted back to consciousness, the woman’s face an oval blur in the darkness, hovering over him.

  “What—what happened?” he asked.

  It was Vito who answered. “You called out, then fell off your horse. You took a nasty tumble, you know.”

  Panic spiked in Kane. “Stringfellow!”

  “Tied to a tree,” Vito said. “He’s very concerned about you.”

  “Yeah, I bet he is.”

  The marshal’s eyes tried to penetrate the gloom. He heard the crackle of a fire close by and the smell of coffee. Somewhere a stream made a soft, splashing sound. “Where are we?” he asked.

  “My answer to that would be nowhere,” Vito said. “But Lorraine assures me we’re on the north slope of the Poteau ridge.” He hesitated a moment, then added, “In the rain.”

  “How did you get me here?” Kane was surprised at how weak his voice sounded.

  “I took you up on my horse,” Vito said. “It wasn’t easy. You’re a big man and every square inch of you has a bullet hole in it.”

  Kane felt Lorraine’s cool hand on his forehead. She sounded worried. “Logan, your fever is not as bad as it was, but you’re still burning up. Don’t try to talk. You must rest.”

  It was a hell of a time and place to be an invalid and Kane forced himself to stay awake. “Lorraine, help me sit up and get me some of that coffee,” he said.

  “I’ll get it,” Nellie said.

  The girl had been sitting near Kane’s feet and he smiled when he saw her. “How are you feelin’, Nellie?” he asked.

  “I’m fine, Logan,” she said. “Just fine.”

  But there was a wounded sadness about the girl that Kane recognized and he decided that only time and kindness would heal her.

  Nellie stepped into the firelight as Lorraine and Vito propped his back against the wide trunk of a beech. He was naked from the belt buckle up, and he turned to Lorraine. “Woman, you surely love to take my clothes off.”

  “I washed your bandages and I’m drying them by the fire,” she said, smiling slightly. “They were stiff with blood.”

  Kane wanted to look at his wrecked shoulder and the wound in his side, but he fought off the urge. Maybe it was better if he didn’t know how bad it was, though the pain was spitefully keeping him up to date.

  “Did you find tobacco in my shirt?” he asked.

  Lorraine reached into the pocket of her dress and passed the sack and papers. “Why they weren’t ruined by blood, I don’t know,” she said.

  “Just lucky, I guess,” Kane said.

  He rolled a cigarette and drank the coffee Nellie brought him, then another cup. He felt a small surge of strength, but was still very weak. His head pounded and he found it hard to focus his eyes. It was an effort to talk.

  “Vito,” he said, “come morning you take Stringfellow into Fort Smith. Lorraine and Nellie will go with you.”

  “And leave you here alone?” Vito was incredulous.

  “I’ll make out. Tell Judge Parker where I am and he’ll send someone to bring me in. It ain’t such a fur piece.”

  Vito shook his head, the half of his face nearer the fire glowing red, the other side in darkness. “I can’t do that, Marshal. Suppose you got eaten by a bear or something? Why, I’d be upset for at least a day or two.”

  “Then what do you propose?” Kane asked, irritated at the other man’s short period of potential mourning.

  It was Lorraine who answered. “Logan, you stay right where you are for a few days until you have strength enough to ride. Then we’ll all head for Fort Smith and find you a doctor as soon as we arrive.”

  Kane shook his head. “I’ll saddle up come daylight. I want Stringfellow in Judge Parker’s jail where he belongs and the sooner the better.”

  “We’ll talk about that . . . in . . . the . . . morning. . . .” Lorraine’s voice grew distant, fading into the silence of his mind, and Kane closed his eyes. Suddenly he was very tired.

  On the morning of their fourth day on the mountain, under a blue sky, Kane and the others rode down the slope and onto the flat.

  The marshal was still weak and had been helped into the saddle by Vito. His pain was gone, and that worried him. It could hardly be a good sign. But his fever remained high—and that had worried Lorraine.

  Just before dawn, as they’d drunk coffee by the scarlet light of the fire, she’d asked, “What happened to your family, Logan?”

  Kane had been building a smoke, and his head had snapped up. “Why do you ask that, woman?”

  “Because you’ve been out of your mind with fever for days and you’ve been talking to your mother constantly, like she was right here.”

  Kane smiled. “I think I’ve told this story before. My ma died of the cholera. So did my pa and my two sisters. I’d been out hunting, trying to lay in meat fer the winter. When I got back to the cabin, they were all dead.” Kane had lit his cigarette and inhaled deeply. “I got scared an’ rode away from there—left them lying in their beds, unburied.”

  “How old were you?”

  “I was fourteen that fall. Man grown, I reckon.”

  “What does she want from you, your ma?”

  “She wants me to go back to Texas and lay them all in the earth.”

  “And you will, won’t you?”

  Kane had nodded. “Soon as I see Stringfellow hung, I’ll go back an’ find the cabin.” He’d stirred uncomfortably. “I still want you and Nellie to come with me.”

  Lorraine had smiled, looked into Kane’s eyes and had laid her hand on the back of his. It was her answer to his question, and it spoke louder to Kane than a volume of Mrs. Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s love sonnets.

  Now Lorraine was beside the marshal as they rode north and swung around Cowskin Ridge into rolling, long-riding country cut across by dry washes and shallow creeks.

  Stringfellow had recovered from his gloom and cursed Kane loudly every time he stumbled and the marshal jerked him to his feet. The iron collar was rubbing the outlaw’s neck raw, and at Lorraine’s insistence Kane stopped to let her bind the wound, using a strip torn from her petticoat.

  If Stringfellow had it in mind to thank her, Lorraine headed him off. She looked into his eyes and said, “I’d do the same thing for a dog.”

  An hour later they skirted the foothills of the Sugar Loaf Mountains, then stopped among the cottonwoods of Gap Creek to boil coffee and let Kane rest.

  The marshal was barely holding on to what little sense of reality still remained with him. He was scorched by fever, tormented by phantoms that haunted every shadowed hill and stand of pine. Dead men from his past stood and watched him ride past, their faces chalk white, hollow eyes without expression.

  Once he saw Sam Shaver squatting on the top of a low hill, peeling a green apple, shoving white slices into his mouth with his thumb and the blade of his knife. The old man watched Kane for a long time, then rose and disappeared over the rise, limping like a man whose wounds gave him no peace.

  The coffee helped Kane, or he convinced himself it did. He mounted again and the rest followed. Lorraine’s face was haggard with fatigue and Vito and Nellie rode together, saying nothing. Stringfellow stumbled more often and cried out when Kane yanked on the rope and dragged him to his feet.

  The day was shading into evening when they crossed the timber bridge over the Arkansas and rode into Fort Smith.


  Chapter 32

  “Logan, there’s a gentleman to see you.”

  Lorraine stood at his bedroom door, lit by the sunlight that streamed through the windows. She was wearing a new dress and her hair, just washed, hung over her shoulder in damp golden ringlets.

  Kane moved higher on his pillows and rubbed a hand over his stubbled chin. “I don’t think I’m ready to see anybody. I’m a sight.”

  Lorraine smiled. “It’s Judge Parker.”

  It had come, the meeting Kane had been dreading. He swallowed and said, “Show him in.”

  He looked quickly around him, making sure the furniture was in order. Before he’d left for New Orleans, Vito had rented the house for three months, calling it an early wedding present. It was a sunny, pleasant place and for the past week Kane had enjoyed the birds singing in the piῆons in the yard.

  The old man’s head appeared in the doorway. “Deputy Marshal Kane, would you think it amiss and me too bold if I entered?”

  “No, Judge, not at all.” Kane smiled.

  “Please stay, dear lady,” Parker said to Lorraine. “I won’t impose on you for long.” He stepped into the room, white haired and dignified, old before his time. “And how is the patient today?” he asked. “Much better than the last time I saw you, I’ll be bound.”

  “I don’t remember anything about that, Judge,” Kane said. He wished he’d had time to shave and trim his mustache.

  “Well, you brought in the escaped murderer Buff Stringfellow. Then you collapsed.” Parker shook his head. “It was all very distressing, but now I can see you’re on the mend and that pleases me.”

  “Stringfellow, is he—”

  “He hangs tomorrow morning at ten o’clock. That’s partly why I’m here, to see if you wish to attend the execution. The other part is, naturally, that I wanted to check on your welfare.” He smiled at Lorraine and made a courtly little bow. “I can see you are in excellent hands.”